Darker Than Love

by Charmaine Pauls

  Following his gaze, I see the red that stains his hands. I see the damage and I know the truth.

  He loves me. My flaws and sins, my twisted self, Yan loves me for who I am.

  Cupping his face, I whisper, “I know.”

  “Mina,” he says harshly, “stay with me. Stay with me, damn you.”

  Already, the sirens are fading. But I do stay with him. I stay with him even when the light bleeds out.

  35

  Yan

  “Mina,” I shout as the life runs out of her eyes right in front of me.

  No! Not this. Anything else.

  I’ll let her go a thousand times over before I let her die.

  Panic like I’ve never known seizes my mind. My emotions wreak havoc in my heart. Fear, anger, remorse, guilt, and more fear assault me. It’s more than I can handle. I’m on the brink of falling apart, but I’ve got to keep it together.

  Fuck! I need to think.

  I’ve got to get Mina to a hospital. But where? With a gunshot wound, there will be questions. The government won’t stick its neck out for her. The clusterfuck of violence that took place in this suite is already pushing it too far.

  Shoving my feelings aside, I act fast. I prioritize actions as a plan forms in my mind.

  I search for Ilya. My brother stands next to me, stunned to silence. His gaze is fixed on the blood seeping from Mina’s side through my gloved fingers.

  My voice is harsh, commanding. “Ilya.”

  His eyes snap to mine.

  “Pillow,” I say, holding out a hand.

  He grabs a pillow from the bed and shoves it into my hand.

  I press the pillow to Mina’s wound. “Call our government connection.” Making quick work of removing my belt, I fasten it around Mina’s waist to keep the pillow in place. It should help to stop or at least slow down the bleeding. “Tell him we need a cleanup.”

  Lifting Mina into my arms, I rush to the door and almost bump into the manager who enters as I’m about to exit.

  “What the hell is going on?” he yells. “One of the maids heard gunshots. What in the name of…” He trails off as he takes in the destruction and corpses. His face goes white.

  “We’ve been set up,” I say, shoving him aside.

  He glances at Mina’s still form. “You can’t leave,” he says in a shaky voice. “You have to stay here and deal with this.”

  Coming out of the bedroom, Ilya says, “A team from the government is on the way.” He slips his phone into his pocket. His tone is clipped, his manner rushed. “They’ll make it look like part of the drug war happening all around the country at the moment.”

  “But—” The manager gags as he looks at one of the bodies. “My hotel.”

  “Keep the floor locked down until our connection gets here,” I call from over my shoulder, running for the fire escape. We can’t risk taking the elevator. No one must see us leave the building.

  Ilya runs ahead to get the door. I dial Anton on the satphone via voice command as I make my way down the stairs as fast as I can without risking a fall.

  “I’m on my way,” Anton says over the drone of an engine. He’s in the plane.

  “How long?” I ask.

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “Do you have enough fuel to take us to Budapest?”

  He doesn’t ask what happened or why Budapest. He knows the questions can come later. “I’ll refuel at the hangar.”

  “We’ll meet you there.”

  Ilya opens the service door and scans the alley. The exit is only used for deliveries and putting out trash. No one is about. We’re in a blind spot where the city cameras don’t reach. The getaway car is parked next to the trashcans. Ilya fishes the key from my pocket and unlocks the doors. We’ve left Mina’s bag with the phone and our weapons behind, but our connection will get rid of those before letting the feds in on the murder scene. We’re out of ammo anyway. The time to collect the rifles would’ve only slowed us down.

  I shift into the backseat, carefully keeping an unconscious Mina in my lap. I pull the safety belt around both of us and secure the clasp. It’s going to be a fast drive.

  Ilya takes the wheel. He’s a competent driver. I trust him to get us there safely. He sticks to the speed limit until we’re out of the busy city center and then pushes down on the accelerator. The airfield is a forty-minute drive away, but we make it in just over twenty.

  Anton waits outside the hangar. He takes one look at Mina before running ahead of us to the plane. He pats the wing. “She’s ready.”

  We scramble inside, me in the back with Mina in my arms and Ilya in the front next to Anton. Questions burn in my mind. What happened? Who the fuck betrayed us? Ripping off my gloves, I check Mina’s pulse. It’s faint, but it’s there.

  Hold on, Minochka. Hold on for me.

  Anton hands me earphones with an integrated mic. I yank out the ear-fitted ones to fit the headset. He passes a similar set to Ilya so we can talk over the noise.

  When we’re airborne, I ask, “Any problems with landing clearance?”

  “Sorted,” Anton replies tersely. “It’s going to cost us another fifty grand, though.”

  I don’t give a fuck about money. All that matters is Mina. “Weapons?”

  Anton tilts his head toward the back. “AK-47 and two Glocks.”

  Good.

  Ilya turns in his seat to look at Mina. His broad face is uncharacteristically pale. He cares about her, too. “She should be in a hospital. Fuck! We should’ve taken her to the closest one in Prague.”

  “And get her arrested?” I say. “Get ourselves detained? How would we have been able to help her then?”

  Sweat beads on Ilya’s forehead. “Why Budapest?”

  “Mina has a doctor friend at the clinic where her grandmother stays.”

  “Who says this doctor will help us?” Ilya asks.

  I’ll hold a gun to the doctor’s head if I have to, but I have a feeling she won’t deny us medical assistance. I’ve done my homework. The good doctor and clinic director, Lena Adami, was Mina’s late mother’s best friend. She’s like a godmother to Mina. The substantial donation I recently made to the clinic in Hanna’s name can’t hurt our chances either.

  “He did the right thing,” Anton says to Ilya. “Mina isn’t safe anywhere in public.”

  My back goes more rigid than it already is, a muscle pinching between my shoulder blades. “What are you talking about?”

  Anton’s voice is strained. “There’s a price on her head.”

  I barely manage to tamp down my explosive anger. “What?”

  “She’s a free-for-all,” Anton continues. “Five million. Every hitman from here to Antarctica is hunting for her.”

  I instinctively tighten my hold on her. “Who? How?”

  “That fucker I tortured spilled all the beans.” Anton glances at me from over his shoulder. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “I already don’t fucking like it.”

  “I cornered Laszlo Kiss in his cozy little cabin,” Anton says. “At first, he didn’t give me anything, not until the third finger. Things only got more and more interesting with every finger after that.”

  “Just spit it out,” I snap, dragging a hand over Mina’s clammy brow.

  “Kiss said they were paid to rough Mina up, all eleven of them.”

  I sit up straighter. “What?”

  “Shut up and listen,” Anton says. “The men got paid for the job, and they did the job well. They already resented Mina, anyway. They didn’t want a woman on their team, especially not a woman who made them eat her dust. It was humiliating. Their egos were bruised. When the offer came, they didn’t have to think about it for long. It was quick money. No consequences. The superior officer would make sure everything was swept under the carpet. Nice and easy. Nothing more to it. They’d carry on with their lives and have a fat bonus in their bank accounts with the added benefit of Mina quitting the team.”

  I can’t believe my f
ucking ears. “It was a ploy to get rid of her?” From what her superior had said right before I cut out his tongue, the fact that he wanted Mina gone shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I can’t get my head around the fact that they were willing to go that far just to make her leave.

  “That’s what Kiss said. After what I did to him, I can guarantee you he wasn’t lying.” Anton grimaces. “Mina didn’t want to quit on her own, so they reckoned she needed a little nudge.”

  “A little fucking nudge?” Mina was almost beaten to death. There’s a chance she may never have children. It’s a fucking heavy price to make someone pay just to get her to leave. I’m glad those motherfuckers are dead. I’m glad I made them suffer before someone else killed them.

  “According to Kiss,” Anton continues, “they got carried away. They were supposed to hurt Mina a bit and scare her shitless, but once the violence started, their bloodlust took over.”

  “Who was it?” Ilya asks, the fury I feel in my bones etched on his face. “Who paid them? Tell me you have a name.”

  “Of course I do.” Anton adjusts a dial on the control panel. “You’re not going to believe this.” He glances at me again. “It was Gergo Nagy, her training officer.”

  Motherfucker. The suppressed anger turns into a wave of rage that rolls through my body until every molecule burns with a white-hot need to kill. The things I imagine doing to that ublyudok will make even a hardened killer like Ilya wince.

  I’m going to catch Nagy. I’m going to catch him and make him pay.

  My voice doesn’t carry my fury. It’s cold and cruel, a giveaway that I’m at my most dangerous. “Mina and Nagy were supposed to be friends. Why would Nagy do something like that?” To have orchestrated such a brutal attack, there must’ve been more to his motivation than sexist discrimination.

  Anton rubs his neck. “Apparently, Nagy wanted Mina to work for him, but she didn’t bite.”

  “Doing what?” I grit out.

  “Killing.”

  Snap. The pieces fall into place. Nagy was going rogue. He saw Mina’s potential and the money that went with that potential.

  “Kiss said Nagy knew Mina needed money for her grandmother’s care,” Anton says. “The medical bills were piling up. Nagy planted the seed, suggesting they could earn more by working for themselves. Mina declined Nagy’s offer. No matter how hard he tried, his arguments couldn’t sway her.”

  “But a vicious enough attack could.” The violent vows I’m making in Mina’s name seethe under the thin layer of my control. “Nagy arranged the assault and pretended to save her, making her believe she owed him her life.”

  “That motherfucker,” Ilya growls, his lip curling up in disgust.

  “Exactly,” Anton says. “The experience was traumatic enough to ensure Mina left the military. After all, she’d run into the same trouble in any other team. Her superior officer made sure she understood that. The rest is predictable. Needing a shitload of money to pay for her grandmother’s care in some fancy clinic, Mina joined Nagy as an assassin. He sent her job referrals, taking kickbacks Mina didn’t know about.”

  I run my fingers through my girl’s soft hair, wishing I could take away what she suffered. Wishing it was me who took that bullet.

  Wishing we were in Budapest already.

  “How did Kiss know all this?” Ilya asks.

  “Nagy and Kiss shared a few drunken nights in brothels around the time Nagy left the military. Nagy bragged about his scheme to Kiss one night after a bottle of vodka. Kiss was an accomplice in the attack, so Nagy didn’t consider him a threat.”

  More puzzle pieces click together. Slowly, the ugly, nasty picture takes shape. “When I went after Mina’s attackers, Nagy got nervous.”

  “He was worried the men would eventually break under the torture and talk,” Anton says.

  “So Nagy took them out,” Ilya concludes.

  “Correct,” Anton says. “Kiss wasn’t hiding only from us. He was hiding from Nagy as well.”

  Something else is eating at me like acid. “What about the price on Mina’s head?”

  “Kiss heard from an ex-military connection that it was Nagy himself who put up the bounty.”

  The fucker. “Nagy saw us together at the station in Budapest,” I say. “He knew Mina had taken the blame for the job of framing us as terrorists. He must’ve been worried she’d eventually tell me the truth, and we’d come after him.”

  “So he made sure every assassin went after her in the hope that someone would eventually succeed.” Ilya spits on the floor next to his seat. “Ublyudok.” In our business, a man who stabs one of his own in the back is the worst kind of scum. “Who set us up?”

  I have a damn good idea, but I want Anton to say it. I want to hear the traitor’s name. I want the syllables of that name to sink into my heart and brain. I want the filthy sound of those dirty consonants and vowels to smolder in my thoughts and feelings until I can smother the hatred with the violence I’ll commit with my bare hands.

  Anton gives Ilya a level look. “Who do you think?”

  “Nagy,” Ilya says with undisguised hatred.

  “After slitting Kiss’s sorry throat, I told our hackers to see if there was anything new on Nagy,” Anton says. “They thought it was most interesting that Nagy had met with Dimitrov only yesterday at his home in Prague. They managed to get a satellite recording with audio. Nagy, that fucker, casually relayed our plans over a cup of tea, lounging on Dimitrov’s pool deck.” Anton clenches the yoke as if he imagines it to be Nagy’s neck. “I called you the minute I got the info.”

  Fuck. Mina must’ve confided in Nagy when she met him in Budapest. There’s no other explanation. Nagy sold us out to Dimitrov, knowing we’d be outnumbered and believing Dimitrov’s men would take Mina, my team, and me out—a whole lot of birds with one stone—thereby eliminating the problems that would’ve followed if Mina or her last remaining assailant were to expose Nagy. His bad.

  “He’s dead.” My voice is ice, even as fire consumes my veins. “Ilya, put out word that I’m doubling Nagy’s price. It’s on his head now, but I want him alive.”

  Ilya’s features soften marginally as he looks at Mina. “You better hope someone finds him before I do.”

  Not if I get to him first.

  Nagy’s greed almost cost Mina her life. He arranged her brutal assault and posed as her savior. He pretended to provide her with a means of earning money while taking kickbacks behind her back. He let her take the blame for a job he did. He set her up while posing as her friend. No matter how desperately I long to tear Nagy apart and rip out his intestines, he’s Mina’s to kill. That doesn’t mean I can’t make him suffer before I hand him over.

  I swear on Mina’s life I’ll find Nagy. I’ll deliver him to Mina if it’s the last thing I do.

  “How’s she holding up?” Ilya asks, his face pulled into a mask of concern.

  My gut clenches. Emotions threaten to erupt, but I push them under the surface. If I give my feelings free rein, I’ll go stark raving mad, and that’s not going to help Mina. “She’s tough. She’ll pull through.”

  She has to.

  “Buckle up,” Anton says. “We’re lucky we had the wind behind us. We’re touching down in five minutes.”

  Thank fuck. The hour-long flight felt like an eternity. My nerves are raw, my emotions all over the place. On the outside, I’m acting with the efficient rationality of a man with military training. On the inside, I’m a mess. Mina’s injury—an injury that could very well turn out to be fatal—is jeopardizing my sanity, while the information Anton shared is making me boil with rage.

  As I hold Mina’s motionless body, I take a silent oath to make all the wrongs right. I’ll give her the freedom I intended. I’ll give her anything in my power. If I believed in God, I’d pray. I’m desperate enough to pray anyway. I’ll do anything, anything at all. I’ll become a goddamn priest if that’s the bargain I have to make.

  A vehicle has been delivered to the hang
ar. Anton, bless his efficient soul, called the rental agency while he was waiting for us in Prague. Ilya grabs the two Glocks to bring with us. Armed with the AK-47, Anton stays behind, using the hangar as a workstation to tap into our satellite and check the area around the clinic for suspicious activities or persons. One can never be safe enough. Ilya gets behind the wheel and drives.

  Cradling Mina with one arm against my chest in the backseat, I use my secure cellphone to dial the clinic and ask for Dr. Adami. I didn’t want to call while we were in the air and find a team of feds waiting for us at the airfield when we landed. I doubt she’ll alarm the authorities, but I prefer to be on the safe side.

  She takes my call jovially, presumably because of that big donation, or maybe she’s truly glad Mina finally found someone. I know Hanna talked to her about me, because I planted bugs while we visited Hanna. I’m more grateful than I care to admit that Mina’s grandmother approves of me, likes me even.

  “Mr. Ivanov, what a nice surprise,” Adami says in fluent Russian. “What can I do for you?”

  There’s no time to beat around the bush. “Mina needs help.”

  Alarm replaces the warmth in her tone. “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s injured.”

  “What kind of injury?”

  “Gunshot.”

  Her breath catches. “Where are you?”

  “On our way.”

  “If it’s a gunshot wound, she needs surgery.”

  “That’s why we’re coming to you.”

  “Is she in trouble?”

  “Yes,” I say honestly. “I wouldn’t be asking you otherwise.”

  “I’m no longer an ER surgeon.”

  “But you were for years.” I learned that as part of my research on the clinic. “Please. Mina is out of options. You’re her only hope.”